A whole generation of children in North Korea has been
affected to varying degrees by famine, threatening the
long-term future of the whole country.

Dozens of school children, wearing their best clothes,
pose for photographs under a giant statue of founding
president Kim Il-sung in Pyongyang, the capital of
famine-struck North Korea.

Everything seems to be normal, but if you take a closer
look, you will notice that most of these children are smaller
than average and show signs of malnutrition.

For decades, communist North Korea preached self-reliance
and developed its own brand of communism.

But since 1995, a combination of natural disasters and
chronic economic difficulties have wreaked havoc on the
country.

These days, North Korea relies heavily on international
handouts to feed its estimated 22 million people.Children are
among those hardest hit by famine.

David Morton, United Nations Humanitarian coordinator in
North Korea, said: "The impact on the people is very serious,
because you have children suffering from deprivation of food
at a very early age, and this can affect, this will affect
their future physical and mental development, and this will
affect the long-term development of the country."
Industrial cities in the northeast, sustaining large
populations on little arable land, are particularly hard hit
by the crisis.

A total of 118 children huddle inside a baby home in the
coastal city of Hamhung.The building is surrounded on all
three sides by hills covered in graves.

Many of the toddlers, ranging in age from six months to
four years, are orphans.Others were put in care by parents
who could not care for their offspring.

At the Hamhung baby home, 32 out of the 118 toddlers
suffer from various degrees of malnutrition.Many of them were
malnourished on admission, the weak children of mothers
suffering from malnutrition themselves.

These children tend to suffer from diarrhoea, respiratory
problems, skin diseases, and an impaired immune system making
them prone to all sorts of potentially life-threatening
diseases.

United Nations officials say the state of children in
nurseries, kindergartens and other social care centres
receiving international aid has improved since last year.

A recent nutritional survey by aid agencies showed acute
malnutrition in about 16 percent of North Korean children
between the age of six months and seven years.

Chronic malnutrition or stunting affected 63 percent of
all children surveyed, reflecting long-term food shortages.

This puts North Korea among the 10 countries with the
highest malnutrition rates in the world.

Famine has affected all sectors of society to various
degrees and many people are relying on "alternative food"
during the lean months of May and June, searching for grass
and roots in mountains or picking seaweed.

The United Nation's World Food Programme (WFP) launched
last month an emergency appeal for 584,000 million tonnes of
food, at a total cost of 260 million, to assist 8.04 million
people.

The United States announced 400,000 tonnes of extra food
aid for North Korea on Monday (May 17), covering a substantial
portion of the country's food requirement.

This spring, WFP is targetting some of the most vulnerable
groups, including school children, pregnant and nursing
mothers and the elderly living in the harder hit northern and
north-eastern parts of the country.

Pupils in this primary school in Chongjin have seen their
food ration increased from 250 to 450 grammes (8.8 to 15.8 oz)
of wheat per person per day in May, providing them with 75
percent of their daily energy requirement.

However, most of them survive on a wheat-based diet
lacking in oil, sugar, and other foods needed to help patients
recover from malnutrition.

Some of the healthier children played basketball in the
schoolyard, one of North Korea's favourite sports.

"When I grow up, I want to be a soldier and defend my
country," said Kim Sung-il, age 11, looking barely older than
eight.

Other children sat in spartan classrooms, under portraits
of founding president Kim Il-sung and current leader Kim
Jong-il.

Many of them looked pale, a telltale sign of anemia, and
appeared to have problems concentrating on their Korean
language class.

Malnutrition at crucial stages of growth can impair
physial and mental development, threatening the long-term
development of a whole generation of children.

Aid agencies say most children in North Korea are in a
precarious position, and any illness or food shortage can
easily push them into the malnourished category.

Over 20 children age six to 18 months sat quietly on the
floor of the Sunam nursery in Chongjin, many of them locked up
in their own little world.

"(The) first time you see these children, openly they are
weak, and most of them are underweight", said Doctor Hoang Thi
Van, a Vietnamese World Food Programme emergency officer in
Chongjin.

"At the age of 15 months old, they still can't walk or
stand up by themselves; because they are not standing up, it's
difficult go give figure about their stature, but I can
estimate that about 50 percent of them are stunted," she
added.

Little is known about actual conditions in secretive North
Korea, because the government does not publish statistics and
severely restricts travel and access inside the country.

WFP considers North Korea to be in the grip of a "famine
in slow motion," with increasingly exhausted people trying to
cope year after year.

Nobody knows for sure how many people have died in the
famine.Government figures put the number of deaths at
220,000, while South Korean and U.S.sources estimate as many
as two or three million people may have died.

What is clear is that a whole generation of North Koreans
have been affected by the famine, ranging from new-born babies
to the elderly.

Some of the worst of the famine may be over, but it will
be a long road to recovery.